Customer Reviews

Low Crimes and Misdemeanors: Confessions of a Tulsa Boy

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I went to Jr. High and High School with Jeff and later married his best friend, John (Johnny in the book). But even I hadn't heard all these stories. I laughed, I cried, I wished I had known Jeff and John better in school--though I am sure my parents would have been appalled if I had. The stories are great; the dialog is just exactly what a Tulsa teenager sounded like. I recognized many of the places. Well, not the Carolina Hotel. I also realized how protected my own teenage years had been in comparison. I was worried about reading a friend's book about his own childhood. What could I say if I didn't like it? But I couldn't put it down. It wasn't just because I knew so many of the characters; it was the authenticity of it. I could smell the chalk on the blackboards, the teenage pheromones in the halls of Will Rogers High, the stale beer and worse. I could hear the wild laughter of those boys. I could feel the camaraderie. And I remembered the pains and joys of my own school years. Thanks, Jeff. I have a feeling I will read this book more than once, maybe once a year. 1957 Rocks.

I was into this book by the second paragraph. I hate to type cast "Low Crimes" because it is a great read at many levels. It is hilarious: I laughed out loud reading in a room by myself and that almost never happens to me because I am a very angry person. It is provoking: Duncan is a gifted narrator and his stories use the setting to speak about a different place and time, so different than modern suburbia yet so much the same. Like Nan above, I too thought back to reading S.E. Hinton's Tulsa-setting teen angst novels during an obvioulsy literary-challenged childhood and wish S.E. had Duncan's narration skills. Great story, great setting, not too many big words. Perfect.

Don't miss Low Crimes and Misdemeanors by Jeff Duncan, the story of this tough and crazy-wild child of the Bible belt of the South. By the age of four he was already creating continuous havoc for the adults of his family, school and community. Who would have believed Jeffrey would survive to graduate from high school? Not me--a very good girl and contemporary from the Bible belt of the North. This all-American kid (very appealing mugs on the cover!), apparently starved for genuine excitement and terror, tells his x-rated story with such life and heart that you cannot stop reading and re-reading and wishing for more...Don't lend this book--just buy extra copies to give your friends--You won't be able to retell these stories with the honest spot-on skill and integrity of the author!

I was born in the '70's, and it's nice to get confirmation of what I've always suspected: that kids are kids, and always have been. Duncan's stories are a window into another time and place that turns everything you've heard about that era on its ear, kinda like when you find out that J. Edgar Hoover was a crossdresser. They also validate one of my favorite fictional stories from the era, The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, which could easily have been writtten about Duncan and his comrades. Duncan's confusion about irrational social rules, especially those involving segregation, highlights the specific inconsistencies of "morality" of the world of his adolescence, and make his mockery of the moral rules that much more enjoyable for the reader. One gets the impression of a modernized version of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn more than a juvenile delinquent or danger to society. His adolescence is the past I think many of us wish we had lived, and his willingness to display it in such stark and unflinching language is a gift to both his readers and posterity. I got a huge kick out of reading each of his vignettes and trying to imagine how Norman Rockwell would have struggled to portray the climactic moment in each story. A must read.

I've had my fingers crossed for Duncan in every chapter I read. He seems to find himself in mischief at every turn, and you'd think he'd learn, but it keeps happening over and over all the way through the book! It is hilarious and hopeful, truthful and bittersweet.

I love that the book is divided into short chapters that function like short stories featuring the same main character; this makes it easy to pick up the book and read for a little while without having to go back and review what I read the night before. I look forward to this book at the end of my long days as a teacher, and have been trying very hard not to get to the end too fast. I was unsuccessful, though, and had start over at the beginning when I got done, because I hadn't gotten enough of Duncan and his antics.

If you like to laugh, or laugh at the debauchery of others, you must read this book. You won't be disappointed.

However you come to it, this book won't let you down. Jeff Duncan was, in his early years, the kind of boy that drove everyone crazy -- except when they were laughing their eyes out! He had me on page 1, and I couldn't help wondering what crazy scheme he'd come up with next. Sometimes opportunities dropped out of the sky for him to exploit; other times he had to exercise his considerable talents at mischief. He was everything I was not, I laughed all the way through, and I cried when it ended.

These exploits are organized into language as sleek as an iPod package while simultaneously being hilarious, fast-paced, and finally, very moving. You can't put it down but don't want it to end. Combining my favorite elements of Fear and Loathing Las Vegas with Catcher In The Rye, the author is somehow able to draw beautiful reflections on life from strings of mischevious anecdotes drenched in good ol' Oklahoma. This book has taught me so much, I've already pantsed the mailman, given laxatives to the neighbors dog, and left a live chicken in a Victoria's Secret dressing room.

Laughed out loud and couldn't put it down!! An easy read that you will want to pass along to a friend because it brings back so many memories of an earlier time. Jeff was the class clown and I remember his legendary trips to the assistant principal. As an author he captured the times, places and people perfectly. For anyone who went through high school in the fifties this is a must read. In addition every parent of the class clown (there is a class clown in every class) should read "Low Crimes" and realize that there is hope.

This book has the flavor of the movie "Stand By Me" and will be a nostalgic throwback for anyone who grew up in the fifties give or take 10 years. Jeff Duncan has a witty, conversational style that makes you feel as if you were reviewing your early years with a good friend at a class reunion. The author has a great sense of humor and can tell a story in a unique, non-pretentious way, using the uncensored venacular of that time.
If you grew up with a friend that was a smart-ass, class clown, or just a recidivist troublemaker, you will identify with this book and love it.

This book is written in a very easy-to-read style, basically lots of great stories one more hair raising than the next. How this guy survived to adult-hood is a mystery. His poor mother! Very easy to read in a single sitting, but like a box of chocalates it was hard not to read just one more. Raised as I was in Northern Ireland I knew I was living in a dangerous environment, but nothing compared to the dangers Jeff faced, even though most of his adventures and narrow escapes were self-inflicted. And access to a Brothel? Wow. Very very honest (I hope there is a statute of limitations in Tulsa as regards some of the frank admissions!), and very very funny.